From: Titus Solowski(fpcs.dleif.253|ikswolost#fpcs.dleif.253|ikswolost)
Subject: An Overview of Foundation Journals Published in May 2017, So You Can Remember How Fucking Lucky We Were Then
Date: May 18, 2022 2:10 PM EST
To: Layla Houghton(fpcs.dleif.253|nothguohl#fpcs.dleif.253|nothguohl)

Hey Layla. Montenegro is lovely this time of year. 64 and sunny right now. Since we're both doing a lot of sitting around on our asses waiting for our various Chosen Ones to appear again, I thought I'd look back at what we were doing just five years ago, before Kate and our pal Thaummy fucked everything up. Look at all this trivial shit we got to care about before it all went south.

I had an article in this one! It was about using radioactive tracer particles in 2972 and 2830 to see if we could hunt down Penrose. Not necessary these days, obviously. Haven't seen him since he did us a favor with that pastor a few years back.

Back issues upon back issues of this one and nothing before last year mentioned Thaumiel. We kept this shit under wraps for way too long. Once she started visiting us, elevating our backwater Task Force to the forefront of the global Foundation mission, we should've had our best folks working on the Aleph problem. Now half the world knows. Christ.

Hey, you're in that Narf thing's range! Spotted anything with that? I know a lot of low-priority skips are slipping through the cracks with the crisis.

I hope this gets through to you. I know even email is starting to get patchy thanks to the fucking Aleph Screwjob. Shortwave with everyone listening just isn't the same. I love you so damn much. Don't let the Northwest rain get you down.

—Titus

From: Layla Houghton(fpcs.dleif.253|nothguohl#fpcs.dleif.253|nothguohl)
Subject: Re: An Overview of Foundation Journals Published in May 2017, So You Can Remember How Fucking Lucky We Were Then
Date: May 18, 2022 7:59 PM EST
To: Titus Solowski(fpcs.dleif.253|ikswolost#fpcs.dleif.253|ikswolost)

You're probably gonna want to try plaintext. I'm guessing the PDFs you sent weren't supposed to look like this?

Until IT gets that DNS routing thing that doesn't send stuff right through the middle of NA and the center of the Aleph…situation…it's best to just avoid complex information.

And I miss you too, Titus. Though, of course, if Thaumiel really is done talking to us and the pencil-pushers are right, physical distance is probably a few years away from not mattering. Or something.

Of course, it's hard to tell you the exact implications of the Aleph force, since 072 is bringing up the old cover-story scary campfire tale schlock instead of the collected research on my terminal. If anyone over there can get the latest updates from the committee, send them our way? Lot of time for reading while we're on McTiriss stakeout. She knows how to take her damn time, that one.

- your Layla

From: Layla Houghton(fpcs.dleif.253|nothguohl#fpcs.dleif.253|nothguohl)
Subject: Re: Re: An Overview of Foundation Journals Published in May 2017, So You Can Remember How Fucking Lucky We Were Then
Date: May 19, 2022 11:01 AM EST
To: Titus Solowski(fpcs.dleif.253|ikswolost#fpcs.dleif.253|ikswolost)

Never mind. Thaumiel just told me it's all…She said we're in a simulated timeline she was using to test a solution to the Aleph problem. She said she didn't know what would happen to us when she put it away or if we were real.

She said she was sorry. She cried. She went away.

So. Love you, babe.

In the Aleph Room, in 2017, Mary Nakayama closed the emails and filed another branching path of probability as a dead end, a doomed universe. Another course of action that wouldn't work. Another splinter future she was using to test a fix.

It's been years. Years of secrecy. Of tentative tests, manipulating whole pocket worlds. Stuck in this fucking room. Trying to stop the terror she's about to cause.

"I didn't mean to break it," she says, to no one. "I just wanted to keep everyone safe."

She's been sitting at this replica of her old desk, peering into possible futures and seeing disaster in every one123456, since she ascended. "Ascended." She was a manic 27-year-old who saw a hole in the universe and decided to use it for herself instead of doing the right thing and sending it up. Now she was paralyzed with power. Stuck in this place that contains all places, thinking about what to do.

It was time to stop waiting. It was time to stop hiding.

She stood up and looked at the confines of the room. An office with no windows that shifted and moved to show her whatever information she needed. A terminal that only told her the ways things would go wrong.

A prison for a stupid girl who thought she could play God, she thought. I need help.

On May 18, 2017, Mary Nakayama left her prison.

This is what happened next.

After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”

At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.

And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne.